Inspiration

“believe that this way of living, this focus on 

the present, the daily, the tangible, 

this intense concentration not on the news headlines 

but on the flowers growing in your own garden, 

the children growing in your own home, 

this way of living has the 

potential to open up the heavens,

 to yield a glittering handful of diamonds 

where a second ago there was coal. 

This way of living and noticing and building 

and crafting can crack through the movie sets 

and soundtracks that keep us waiting 

for our own life stories to begin, and 

set us free to observe the lives we have been creating

 all along without ever realizing it.

I don’t want to wait anymore. I choose to believe 

that there is nothing more sacred or profound than this day. 

I choose to believe that there may be a 

thousand big moments embedded in this day, 

waiting to be discovered like tiny shards of gold. 

The big moments are the daily, 

tiny moments of courage and forgiveness and 

hope that we grab on to and extend to one another. 

That’s the drama of life, swirling all around us,

 and generally I don’t even see it, because I’m too busy waiting

 to become whatever it is I think I am about to become. 

The big moments are in every hour, 

every conversation, every meal, every meeting.

The Heisman Trophy winner knows this. 

He knows that his big moment was not 

when they gave him the trophy. 

It was the thousand times 

he went to practice instead of going back to bed. 

It was the miles run on rainy days, 

the healthy meals when a burger sounded like heaven. 

That big moment represented and rested on a 

foundation of moments that had come before it.

I believe that if we cultivate a true attention, 

a deep ability to see what has been there all along, 

we will find worlds within us and between us, 

dreams and stories and memories spilling over. 

The nuances and shades and secrets 

and intimations of love and friendship and marriage 

and parenting are action-packed and multicolored,

 if you know where to look.

Today is your big moment. Moments, really. 

The life you’ve been waiting for is happening all around you. 

The scene unfolding right outside your window

 is worth more than the most beautiful painting, 

and the crackers and peanut butter that you’re having for lunch 

on the coffee table are as profound, 

in their own way, as the Last Supper. This is it. 

This is life in all its glory, swirling and unfolding around us, 

disguised as pedantic, pedestrian non-events. 

But pull of the mask and you will find your life, 

waiting to be made, chosen, woven, crafted.

Your life, right now, today, is exploding with energy 

and power and detail and dimension, 

better than the best movie you have ever seen. 

You and your family and your friends and 

your house and your dinner table 

and your garage have all the makings of a life 

of epic proportions, a story for the ages. 

Because they all are. Every life is.

You have stories worth telling, memories worth remembering, 

dreams worth working toward, a body worth feeding, 

a soul worth tending, and beyond that, 

the God of the universe dwells within you,

 the true culmination of super and natural. 
You are more than dust and bones.
You are spirit and power and image of God.
And you have been given Today.” 

~ ShaunaNiequist from the book Cold Tangerines